November 21, 1884. 



SCIENCE. 



479 



ring to the safety of his hypotheses, are cast 

 aside ; as, for example, the well-known work 

 of Carrington on the solar spots, "for the 

 sun was an especial study with him [the 

 author] before Mr. Carrington was born, and 

 he prefers his own approximations " (p. 30). 



It is not, however, so hard to see how an 

 ill-balanced enthusiast may persist in this 

 course indefinitely, as it is difficult to conceive 

 of the intellectual stupefaction which busies 

 itself with the preposterous invention of suit- 

 able facts to match agreeable Irypotheses. 

 When, for example, Mr. Bassnett finds his 

 theoiy of ethereal vortices cannot help going 

 to pieces when he tries to make it account for 

 the observed phenomena of the periodicity 7 of 

 the solar spots, he has no hesitation in fabri- 

 cating a great planet outside of Neptune, of 

 such mass, and position, and distance from the 

 sun, as to bring about the absolute harmony of 

 his hypothesis with the observed periodicity ; 

 nor does he shrink, when he finds it necessary, 

 to make this convenient planet travel round 

 the sun in just the other w T ay from what all the 

 hitherto recognized planets do. 



But unaccountable idiocy can be tolerated 

 where unconscionable conceit cannot. When 

 the world's greatest investigators of solar 

 phenomena confess that the sun and its sur- 

 roundings are the mystery of cosmical plrysics, 

 this writer pops into prominent print with a 

 book " whose credentials are an undeniable 

 ability to divest that subject of its myster}\" 

 Sun-spots, to sa}' the least, have yielded all 

 their secrets to him ; and he retires from an 

 excursion of half a hundred pages on his own 

 theon- of the solar spots with a self-compla- 

 cencj T more alarming than a thousand eurekas, 

 for he finds that " the solar spots are not such 

 formidable nrysteries, after all" (p. 172). 



The gross failure of the author's life as a 

 scientific man appears to lie, just where many 

 lives make shipwreck, in his early penetration 

 with the idea that his destiny was with the 

 great. It was for others to drudge in collect- 

 ing facts, but for him to cut a grand figure in 

 the development of striking and original gen- 

 eralizations, — an unhappy fallacy of ill-bal- 

 anced minds. ' Our business,' he says, ' is to 

 establish a theory,' etc. ; and later (p. 129) we 

 are told that "in 1853 the author published 

 the only possible solution of the problem [of 

 sun-spot periodicity]." The persistent refusal 

 of scientific men to recognize his arrogant 

 claims leads him to indulge a vindictive inso- 

 lence. His experience of the treatment which 

 his theory of electric vortices has received 

 during the past thirty years is a sorry one, and 



encourages occasional despondency, and the 

 "growing conviction that the scientific world, 

 as a bod}^, loves darkness rather than light." 

 However, he falters not ; for it is better to 

 "have the approval of a few kindred spirits, 

 than drift with the current which is sweeping a 

 deluded majority to inevitable oblivion." 



How long ought the patience of scientific 

 men to indulge this badgering assumption ? 

 Mr. Bassnett has repeatedl}' addressed himself 

 to the acknowledged leaders in science, and 

 has been just as repeatedly snubbed. At vari- 

 ous scientific assemblies he and his ubiquitous 

 electric vortices have been the dread of presid- 

 ing officers, and the butt of ' Section A.' So 

 far, however, from inculcating the necessity of 

 humility, all these merited rebuffs have only 

 emboldened him to renewed impertinence, 

 which he has the effronteiy to term ' scientific 

 spirit.' 



A book so nearly valueless we have rarely 

 seen. A single chapter, however, — that on 

 the ethereal medium, — is worth the reading : 

 it is suggestive as to lines of research which 

 may some time come to be worth following out : 

 and the vigorous statements of the author's 

 beliefs are an interesting studj'. But as a 

 whole, little good, if any, can come from the 

 printing of such a volume ; and with equal 

 certaint} T the harm it can do is a minimum, 

 for its readers will be few, and chiefly confined 

 to such of the curious as know too much to be 

 led astray. 



THE VALUE OF SORGHUM. 



Sorghum : its culture and manufacture economically 

 considered as a source of sugar, syrup, and fodder. 

 By Peter Collier, Ph.D., late chemist of the 

 U. S. department of agriculture. Cincinnati. 

 Clarke, 1884. 11 + 570 p , illustr. 8°. 



Although the cultivation of sorghum in the 

 United States, and its utilization as a source 

 of sirup, date from about the middle of this 

 century, and although more or less frequent 

 attempts to produce sugar from it had been 

 made at the time when the U. S. department 

 of agriculture began its investigations (1878), 

 the most conflicting opinions prevailed as to 

 the value of the plant as a source of sugar. 

 The remarkable growth of the sorghum-sugar 

 industry within the last few years, and the very 

 general interest in the subject now manifested, 

 may be fairly ascribed mainly to those inves- 

 tigations, and to others which were incited by 

 them . 



It is a matter of congratulation, that the 

 task of recording the results of recent inves- 



